Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

A/N: Hey woah, I'm publishing something? Weird. This started out as a drabble-thing that kept trying to write itself, until it didn't. Then it wanted to be a one-shot. Funny how that works out. Warning for the abuse of italics (I do so love my italics) and for Azula (who needs a warning all of her own).

Azula had known, from a very young age, that she was going to kill to her brother.

It wasn't that she didn't care. Zuko was family, after all, and those were ties that ran deep. At least, that's what Mother said, and Mother had managed to turn herself from a lowly handmaiden into the Fire Lord's wife, so clearly she knew something about the way of the world.

(Later, after Mother had left her, after she'd committed treason and left her only daughter just to save Zuko, of all people, and Azula was alone with her rage and her ambitions, she would admit that family and caring had nothing to do with anything at all.)

Simply put, Zuko was awkward, and clumsy, and far too trusting, whereas Azula was beautiful and graceful and brilliantly, cunningly ruthless, and she would make a far better Fire Lord than he would. It was her duty to her nation; her sovereign right as Sozin's descendant and Ozai's proper heir to ensure that her people never had to endure the bungling incompetence that would be Zuko on the throne. Poor Zuzu could barely even Firebend, his muddled forms so different from her burning blue flames, and if that wasn't a sign that he wasn't fit to rule, she didn't know what was.

She had planned it out, sometimes, little daydreams and fantasies that came over her in the idle moments, when she wasn't busy attending war meetings or hunting the Avatar or trying to conquer the whole damn worthless world. When she was little, it had been simple. Putting a knife into his heart had always been a favorite—she could imagine the pleasant rasp of the blade scraping against his ribs, and the agonized little gasps he would make as she slowly pushed it in deeper and deeper still—but eventually she'd grown old enough to realize that it would be political suicide to be deemed responsible for a prince's murder. Not even Father would support her if she did something so sloppy.

After that she switched to burning. A training accident would be easy enough to fake. Poor Princess Azula, tripping on a technique too complicated for such a small child and hurting her brother so badly that the best physicians in the Fire Nation couldn't save him. How guilty and haunted she must feel. Et cetera.

She would have to act properly remorseful, of course, wearing white for mourning for at least, say, three years after his death? Perhaps she would simply change her whole wardrobe, build up a whole persona around the affair; the people loved a tragic figure, after all, and she'd always thought she looked stunning in white. They didn't have to know just how much she would relish Zuko's dying screams, or how remembering the smell of his burning flesh would bring a smile to her face when she was alone.

Hiring assassins had never occurred to her. Her brother's death would be by her hands and none other. He deserved that much, at least.

Then Zuko was banished. Azula no longer needed to imagine what her brother's charred flesh smelled like; Father had taken care of that, had deprived her of the pleasure. Which wasn't fair, even if seeing the disgraced prince's suffering had been such a thrill. She'd thrown a private temper tantrum when she'd returned to her quarters, one made all the worse when she learned Zuko was being sent on a quest instead of even being properly exiled. Not that he'd succeed, of course—he was Zuko, after all—but it was the principle of the thing.

Then she'd closed her eyes and calmed her flames. Zuko would wait. She would just have to kill him later.

She spent the next three years following Father's lead and pretending her brother didn't exist, keeping her fantasies to herself, making herself as irreplaceable to the Fire Lord and his Nation as she could. When he'd summoned her and given her the orders to hunt Zuko down, the rush that had swamped her had been almost overpowering. She'd had to bite down her initial excitement. She was no longer a little girl, constrained by a child's simple ideas of intrigue. She wasn't simply going to murder Zuko.

She was going to destroy him.

Poor, foolish Zuzu, the failure and the traitor. Knives and fire would not suffice this time. She was going to need a net.

And so she'd schemed and plotted, the way that three years as a crown princess in a vicious court had taught her, and, eventually, it had worked. Zuko had been ensnared all too easily in the Dai Li's crystal catacombs, soft lies and gentle promises luring him away from their fool of an uncle, and she'd brought him home and built him up, all the better to knock him down again when he inevitably failed.

Which he did.

And then everything went wrong.

It was still hard to believe, sometimes, that Zuko was the one looking into the prison cell and she was gazing out at him, instead of the other way around.

Even today, Zuko somehow managed to make the regal hairpiece and robes look awkward and oversized, the golden flame in his topknot slightly crooked and the sleeves hanging down just a bit too far past his wrists. Her crown, and her robes, and her stupid brother living her life. She glared out at him, smoke coming from her mouth, and her eyes, perhaps, just a bit too wild.

Zuko knelt on the floor in front of her, setting down the tray he was carrying. "Azula," he said, and his voice was gentle, as if she were some fragile little doll instead of the most powerful Firebender in the world. "How are you, today?"

Her eyes rolled in her head. She didn't answer.

Zuko sighed, then poured steaming hot liquid from the pot on the tray into a small metal cup. "Will you come closer? I brought you some tea. I, uh," he glanced at her manacled wrists and winced, "I could help you drink it, if you like?"

Azula snorted. Zuko always brought tea, and he always held the cup for her. She would've enjoyed having him for a servant, if the circumstances had been different. They kept her hands bound to limit her bending, and the constant reminder chafed almost as much as the shackles did.

But she was thirsty. She'd heard the guards tell Zuko that she'd been screaming earlier. Utter nonsense, of course, but her throat ached all the same. Studying a point over her brother's shoulder, she jerked her shoulders so that they leaned against the bars of the cell. Then, knowing it would make him jump, she snapped her eyes to meet his and sneered.

Zuko did jump, sloshing some of the hot tea onto his hand. He scowled, holding her gaze, and then looked away, wiping the anger from his face. Carefully, he raised the cup and blew on it, as if she were a child, and then held it against her lips.

The past three times this had happened, Azula had taken a gulp and then spat the drink into his face, pleased with his squawks of protest and the sting it must have caused him. He probably expected the same response today, and why he hadn't given up yet was a mystery to her. She considered a repeat performance, as she carefully sipped at her tea, and remembered that she hated being predictable.

She swallowed.

Halfway through the cup, she decided she was finished, and she slid away, lounging against the edge of the bed to study him. Zuko was setting the cup back on the tray, and when he looked back up at her he was smiling. He probably thought he was making progress.

Fool.

"How was it?" he asked, and didn't wait for her answer. "It's one of Uncles latest blends. He'll be happy to know you liked it, he worked so hard on it. His teashop's doing pretty well, you know—I don't think you ever saw it, when you were in Ba Sing Se, but it really is a nice place."

Azula's lip curled back as she listened to him prattle, something about the Avatar and peace negotiations and how he was utterly ruining her country. She tuned him out and rolled her head back and forth, feeling the cartilage in her neck crack and enjoying the pull on her stiff muscles. Her hair brushed against one cheek, and she shuddered and tossed her head impatiently, snarling.

"Azula?"

She looked at him again.

Zuko's brow was creased in worry. "I'll get someone to come in and take care of that for you," he said. "Your hair, I mean. It could use a trim. And some brushing, maybe. Just, um, try not to burn anyone this time, okay?"

Azula glared at him.

"Uh..." Zuko rubbed the back of his neck, then gazed down at his tea tray. "Look, Azula... I need to go now. I've got a meeting in an hour, I need to get ready. I'm sorry I couldn't visit with you longer. But I'll stop by again as soon as I can, I promise." He met her eyes, then fumbled to rise and collect his tray.

She turned her back on him, barely listening as he added, "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

Azula waited she could barely hear his footsteps, then made a decision. "Zuko!"

She heard his footsteps stop, then come closer, until he was standing just outside her cell again. "Azula? Are you okay?"

Azula gazed down at the cracked remains of her fingernails, wondering how long he would wait before he gave up on her. Finally, when she thought he was about ready to leave, she said, "Tell Mother to stop visiting. I don't want to see her anymore."

There was a long pause. Then Zuko said, in a quiet voice that didn't sound quite right to her, "Of course, Azula. I'll... I'll talk to her about it."

"Good," she snapped. "You can go now."

Zuko waited outside for what seemed a long moment more, and then, slowly, she heard his footsteps disappear down the hallway.

Distantly, she thought she could hear Mother laughing somewhere. Azula closed her eyes, ignoring the ghostly hand that she felt gripping her shoulder, and began to hum a tuneless melody to herself, trying to block out the noise.